Born in Blood
by enigmaSEVen
Summary: Hands were clutching, tearing, ripping away at his skin and binding him into a physical form.  For those few seconds, nothing existed but pain . . . and then he was screaming.  Homunculus!Edward


**Born in Blood** by enigmaSEVen

Oneshot(?)

Warning: Implied character death and an abundance of blood.

Disclaimer: The Fullmetal Alchemist characters are not mine.

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All was absolutely still. The darkness was complete. He felt a gentle pull, and followed it, curious, but not eager. Having no legs, he did not walk, but moved nonetheless. He saw a light—and then the darkness was lost to him as the blinding white glare engulfed him.

Hands were clutching, tearing, _ripping_ away his skin; binding him into a physical form. Nothing existed but pain, and he screamed. Tears welled in his blind eyes, and trailed down his fleshless face. Blood was pounding in his head, and the all the sounds that he could hear were _red_. The stench was nauseating; it was bittersweet and pungent—definitely blood, and he knew it was his. He was a bloody pulp, a side of beef, and he wasn't fit to live. Why, oh why was he _alive_? He had no right to be, he was dead. He was dead, and so was everyone behind the Gate, so who could be crying? The screams were his own, but who was crying? He had to know.

Blinking hard, he managed to clear some of the blood from his eyes. He was quite close to several high ivory pillars. They erupted from the wet red ground messily, and at odd angels. A wave of nausea swept over him, and he shut his eyes, willing the new images out of his mind. When he reopened his eyes, he would be waking up in Central and Mustang would be calling him every half-hour to remind him that all of his reports were months overdue, and that his paycheck would be suffering for it. And his ribs would still be inside his body. That was the really important bit.

But if he was alive when he had no right to be, then someone had done something incredibly stupid, and would almost undoubtedly be suffering for it. And that, he realized, would explain the crying. He could still hear it, but it was softer now, and the red noise had faded to splattered sort of pink. He could hear the crying, and he understood that it was not without meaning—someone was calling a name. Yes, it must be a name. And it sounded horribly familiar.

"Edward," it whispered, in the high voice of a young boy. "Forgive me, Brother…" The creature's eyes snapped open, and rolled back into its bald head. When next it screamed, the noise was almost intelligible, as though it were trying to form words, but lacked the proper tools.

"Aaallphonssse," it howled, its voice like nails on a chalkboard. "Mhhy brothhher…" Bloody tears streamed from the creature's milky eyes as it tried to raise itself. As it did so, the bones of its ragged arms slid through the pulsating muscle and rancid flesh, incapacitating the creature almost entirely, and sending flashes of white hot pain into its already overloaded brain.

Hours, days, months later, the creature awoke, the searing pain ebbing. Or perhaps he was simply growing accustomed to it.

There had been something important, he remembered, but he couldn't recall what. It was hard to breath when he lay on his stomach. That was more to the point. He could recall that he had been trying to move the first time he'd blacked out. It had seemed awfully important that he do so at the time. It was hard to think, but he could not sleep. He wondered if that was unusual for the newly reincarnated. That was important. Someone had brought him back. He tried to remember, but his mind was slipping back into the dark place that would swallow him whole and allow him to exist without thought, giving him a chance to heal. A guy with broken arms needed all the rest he could get. He had broken his arms.

Almost lazily, he let his eyes fall open. He was about to let them slide shut, when he realized that there was something on the floor across from him: some sort of dark object. This would be fun, challenging. If he could figure out what it was, then he'd know that he was getting better. He couldn't stay sick forever. He'd made a promise. He wasn't sure what it had been, but a promise was a promise, and so he knew that it must've been important. It had been something to do with armor…yes, a helmet! It was a helmet, but not a very good one. The pool of blood was causing it to rust.

He must be getting better if he could see again. And he could. It was now quite clear to him that the dark shape he had puzzled over was the soulless shell of his loving brother, Alphonse.

Somewhere in the darkness, Edward Elric screamed.

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**A/N: **This could become the prologue to a separate fic if I could just get myself to commit to one story for a decent amount of time. We shall see. In any case, thank you for reading this! (I'd love to hear your thoughts.) enigmaSEVen


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